In thus urging the influence women might exert over this state of manners, it is not proposed to them to force conversation out of its natural channel, or deliver maxims. Ostentatious efforts could do nothing in a case of this nature. The half-informed zeal of new converts, with their ill-timed endeavours, and crude conceptions of what they are trying to promote, is always a serious injury to every reform in its commencement. A new system must contain in itself great force of truth, to withstand the shock of such injudicious advocacy. The real way to improve the manners of society is to eradicate the errors that corrupt them. Let women be convinced they have a social duty to perform in this respect, and model their own education so as to fit themselves for it, and a higher and better cast of general sentiment will be the certain consequence. If the spring be pure and copious, the waters which flow from it will make channels for themselves, and much better ones than if laboured by art. It is in this unstudied manner, at present, that women direct their influence to uphold the virtue and delicacy of their own sex. It is by the unpremeditated promptings of a genuine feeling, that they maintain the respect due to themselves and to society, not by set declarations or refined disquisitions on the subject.

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SECTION III.

On Social and Domestic Improvement.

Though the object of this work, is rather to prove the importance of female education to national manners and happiness, than to the private and domestic relations of that sex, yet the two are really inseparable. Society can but consist of all its parts; and in proving that the benefits of civilization, will never be effectually spread through the whole community till women are much better qualified to promote it, I shall be very unfortunate if I do not show at the same time, that the interests of a more enlarged utility, necessarily must improve the virtues and happiness of private life.

It is so natural and so right that the two sexes should refer to the opinions of each other, (independently even of the direct interest the weaker has in so doing,) that if there were not a certainty of support from the best and most thinking among men, there would be little hope of success in addressing the women. In urging them, therefore, to disregard the sneers and the prejudices they may have to contend with, may we not ask them whether, as reasonable beings, and as Christians, they are justified in postponing their own improvement and their means of extensive and real utility, to the vanity of being popular with the weaker part of the other sex, however numerous? And whether, when they have turned away from all that most dignifies human nature, they find that majority so particularly lenient

to the effects of the ignorance they patronize,-to its frivolity, its levity, its extravagance, its indiscretion, its intemperate pursuit of pleasure, or even its innocent mistakes, and its conscientious but obstinate prejudices? Is it not notorious, that whatever encouragement men give in society to the follies of women, it is always on them that they throw both the blame and the punishment at last?

If anything were wanting, to confirm the practicability of reforming the false views that withhold the female world from improvement, it might be found in the experience of women in the present day, who have braved the prejudices that opposed their progress. They have found them as illusory as the sounds from the magic wood in Tasso, which, addressed to the hearts of the tender and the fears of the irresolute, deterred all but him who dared to question their reality. In contemplating the atmosphere of true enjoyment in which such women live, the respect which continually surrounds them, the devoted affections they have excited, the under current of sincere admiration for them which pervades the manner of their male friends, we are tempted to question the reality of the prejudices we are now combating. Returning to general society, however, soon revives the impression.

Not unfrequently, the same man is found strong in his prejudice against any acquirements of a serious and solid nature for women in general, yet an enthusiastic admirer of some particular woman of distinguished abilities, whom he holds up as an exception to all rules. A sort of thing made like an aërolite,

God knows how or where, but not to be compounded in our own crucibles, by putting together such well known ingredients as good wits and good books. Clever women are perhaps collectively under-rated, and individually over-rated, by the other sex. The reason that women, who are already distinguished for talent, produce so little effect on the taste and manners of their own sex is, that not being disposed to become apostles of a new system, they usually make themselves cyphers in general society. Accustomed to the flow, animation, and variety of conversation in their own circle, they feel stupified by the insipidity of what is commonly called small talk, and keep it up worse than women who have much less vivacity, but who take interest in the nothings it consists of. When drawn into the great world, either by station or the natural desires of youth, they soon become sated, and withdraw from a region where they feel their heart and imagination withering within them. If forced to continue in it, in the course of time they are absorbed by the current, for no one can long resist the influence that surrounds them on every side, and mingles with everything they do. But if, in some singular instance, their innate taste should be so strong as to be unconquerable, far from trying to take any lead, they will be too happy to escape obloquy, by following the tone that others set; nor will they do otherwise till the opinion that that tone is a right one becomes generally shaken. Till then, the wise will yield precedence to the frivolous and the prejudiced. These may be the most numerous part of society,

but they are not for that reason the best entitled to lead. The rule of the democracy, in the dominions of sense at least, is not desirable. After all, it may be safely affirmed that their numbers are exaggerated.

Sometimes the sneer against female learning is directed less against the reality, than the affectation of it, or the presumption that attends at its threshold. Those defects are fast disappearing, and it is a mistake to attribute them peculiarly to women. Is there no pretension, no arrogance among men? We see a dictatorial and political position, sometimes assumed by individuals of both sexes who have acquired reputation as lively writers, but who are totally unaware, that in the great world of letters their place is only third or fourth rate; and that their opinion is absolutely without weight as an authority. This pretension is assuredly more ridiculous in a woman than a man; but it is also less common; and every degree of cultivation their judgment receives will diminish it further.

The results of real instruction, its refined and various tastes, its extended sympathies, its clear judgment, its aptitude to render assistance under every circumstance, no man can dislike, who is not himself deficient in sense or feeling. What happiness can a man of enlarged views and warm imagination find with a narrow-minded creature, not capable of comprehending even the value of the things that occupy him? The capacity of following out abstruse investigations he may not require; it is one which operates most in solitude, and compara